All joking aside, the producer is the project director of a recording project, usually an album. The buck stops at their desk. They hire and fire, determine when a track goes to print or gets cut. They have the final artistic say on every aspect of production. The executive producer determines how to pay for what the producer wants to do, and whether there's enough money to do it. Smart producers get input from the talent, the tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers, and actually pay attention to them. The best producers hire the right people, and then let them do their job. The world is full of asshole so-called producers who get away with telling other people how to do their jobs because they have money. I like to think I've become a pretty good producer. If you don't like what the mixing engineer is doing, you probably need a different mixing engineer. The key to being a good producer is finding people that you don't have to tell how to do their jobs, and then letting them do it. It is also finding talent who can actually play.-Richie